This invention relates to an apparatus and method for tracking a vehicle and, more particularly, to an apparatus and method wherein the location of a vehicle is recorded during a predetermined event.
A wide variety of tasks are performed using vehicles. These often include pickup and delivery of persons or goods. It is sometimes desirable to have a record of the time and place of the performance of these tasks. Various methods exist for creating such records. These typically consist of simple handwritten logs kept by drivers of the vehicle, such as those commonly used by truck drivers. One of the disadvantages of existing systems for recording a vehicle's position is that they generally require manual action on the part of the driver. This can result in the recording of incorrect information or the omission of information, either unintentionally or intentionally. For this reason, it would be desirable to have a system which can determine the location of a vehicle automatically without requiring any action on the part of the operator.
In general, there are various systems which have been used for determining the location of a vehicle. These include LORAN systems and Global Positioning Systems (GPS). These systems rely on externally transmitted radio frequency signals to calculate the location of a receiving antenna mounted on the vehicle. In LORAN systems, this calculation is based on the time difference in signals received from multiple transmitters. Because the latitude and longitude of the transmitters are known, the distance from two or more transmitters can be calculated from the time lag between the reception of the plurality of signals. The resulting calculation can determine the latitude and longitude of the receiving antenna to within approximately plus or minus 20 feet.
Another type of navigational system is the GPS system. In the GPS navigation system, the transmitters are positioned on orbiting satellites. Time and location information of the satellites plus the doppler shift of the radio frequency signal received from the satellite is used to calculate the location of the receiver. GPS systems can determine location with even greater accuracy than LORAN systems.
Insofar as applicant is aware, existing systems utilizing these techniques are not particularly useful for tracking the location of a vehicle during predetermined events. This is because they are generally designed for the purpose of informing the operator of his current location. Furthermore, it is believed that these systems ordinarily do not record a history of the vehicle's location. They also do not include a means for automatically activating the navigational system in response to predetermined events.
Thus, it would be desirable to have a system which could record the latitude and longitude of a vehicle during predetermined events by means of a navigational system. It would also be desirable to have a system which would be responsive to predictable movements during these events to activate the recording of positional information without any action required by the operator or driver of the vehicle.
In accordance with the teachings of the present invention, a vehicle is equipped with a navigational system as a GPS or LORAN type system. The vehicle also is equipped with a sensor or sensors that are automatically switched upon the occurrence of a predictable or predetermined event. For example, this sensor may be a switch that closes when the passenger door of a taxi cab or bus is opened or closed. The placement of the sensor will vary depending on the particular type of information desired, and the purpose of the tracking system. The sensor will then trigger the navigational antenna system causing it to receive and process signals containing navigational information. This will permit calculation of the position of the vehicle at that time. The vehicle, in accordance with the invention, is also equipped with a data collector that has the capability of storing this information along with the time and date of the recording of the information, as well as a full identification of that specific vehicle. The stored information can then be downloaded to a data processing system and accessed immediately, or at a later time and analyzed to determine the exact location and time of the occurrence of the events.
The present invention is useful in a number of applications. These include recording the location of each pickup and dropoff point of passengers of busses and taxi cabs; recording locations of trucks or railroad cars at various times; tracking the deliveries of delivery trucks and vans; tracking the location of police cars and fire trucks and other applications where recording vehicle location and event history is desirable. To adapt the present invention to each individual application would simply require the configuring of a switch or sensor to record the occurrence of the desired event. For example, the switch may be responsive to the opening or closing of a door. Or, the event may simply be the passage of an interval of time.
The present invention is particularly useful in the waste disposal business. It is a common problem in commercial and industrial waste disposal that the location and time of each pickup and each dump by the garbage truck is not always known. This creates a number of difficulties, such as in determining the correct billing for each customer. It has been found that it is not practical to require the driver to keep records of the time and location of each pickup and dump. For this reason, it would be desirable to have a system which automatically records the time and place of each pickup and the time and place of each dump.
A further advantage of the present invention in the field of waste disposal is the ability to monitor the exact location of the dumping of hazardous waste. At present, it is possible for hazardous waste to be dumped from a garbage truck at an unauthorized or unknown location. This situation can create serious environmental problems. Using the present invention, however, when hazard waste is picked up from a particular location, regardless of whether the waste is known to be hazardous or not, there will be an exact record of the location of the pickup and also an exact record of any subsequent dumping of that waste. These records will benefit the persons disposing of the hazardous waste because he will know where his hazardous waste ends up. The records will also benefit the dump site owner because he will know, with certainty, the source of waste dumped at his dump site. Finally, the waste hauler will benefit from the ability to monitor the exact location and sequence of activities of his garbage trucks.
One embodiment of the present invention may be used to determine the source of waste products of unknown origin. In this embodiment, the navigational system is used to determine the location of the truck during pickup of waste. This information is then transferred to a portable identification tag which stores the information. The identification tag then is placed in the waste. At a later time, an RF transmitter and receiver is brought within proximity to the identification tag and transmits an activating RF signal to the tag. This causes the tag to transmit its stored information to the RF transmitter and receiver. In this way the source of the waste can be determined.
Still other advantages and uses of the present invention will become apparent to one skilled in the art upon a study of the following specification and by reference to the drawings.